


the cardinal hits the window

by cooliohoolio



Series: i could see what you were reading [2]
Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Hanahaki Disease, Hurt No Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:55:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24141676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cooliohoolio/pseuds/cooliohoolio
Summary: He couldn’t cry anymore. He felt as if he had spent all the tears he’d been allotted for his life the night he found out Shane had died in the back of an ambulance. Watching these captured pieces of time, in which Shane was with him and always would be, stopped, forever, made him want to cry. But he couldn’t, and he wasn’t going to force himself to.sequel toand he takes and he takes
Relationships: Ryan Bergara/Shane Madej
Series: i could see what you were reading [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1742158
Comments: 20
Kudos: 125





	the cardinal hits the window

**Author's Note:**

> hi, everyone. this is my follow-up fic to "and he takes and he takes". i'm not in the buzzfeed unsolved fandom anymore, but all the nice comments and feedback made me want to revist this au. this isn't shyan fanfiction so much as it is a love letter to the shyan fandom; i may not be active in y'all's ranks anymore, but being one of the first people to write fanfic for this fandom, helping build it into what it is today, being in the community has built my confidence as an author and made me who i am, in a lot of ways. 
> 
> once again, title is from 'casimir pulaski day' by sufjan stevens
> 
> hope you guys like this, because it's for you. sorry it's sad.

Ryan Bergara is crying and he doesn’t know why. It’s not a soft, small cry; he’s sitting in an empty hospital room, surrounded by a plethora of cards (but no flowers), he’s staring out the small window, and he’s sobbing. His chest is heaving, tears are streaming down his cheeks, but he knows that, if pressed, he could not name the reason his tears fell. 

Because Ryan Bergara forgot. It’s the one thing that he promised himself he wouldn’t forget, the only thing in his whole life that he said to himself and meant—

For the life of him, he can’t remember what the fuck it was.

—

Shane Madej wasn’t the only ghost lingering in his home. In many ways, Ryan knew that he was a ghost.

He could pinpoint the moment he became one, too. After chasing ghosts and haunts for a large portion of his career, after believing in them for his whole life, he figured it would feel different. Ryan always assumed he would die first. 

He became a ghost sitting alone on his bathroom floor. Blood was dribbling from his mouth, his body curled up, hunched over the toilet. The water was pooled at the bottom of the bowl and his reflection was transparent and almost unseeable. The water rippled, the blood curling down his bottom lip and dripping into the water, flowering and disrupting his pale reflection. 

At the bottom of the water sat two flowers.

Earlier, when he had been choking and gasping for air, painful tears streaming down his face as he suffocated, for just a moment, he paused for a moment to look in the mirror. It was less than half a second, but the lips on the panicked face that looked back were a bluish-purple color as he tried, and failed, to breathe.

The petals of the sodden flowers that mocked him from the toilet were the same color. Pale, half-alive, bluish-purple flowers.

Blood dropped into the water again. His reflection rippled and dispersed.

He couldn’t even watch his eyes widen, but he felt his skin shift with realization. 

The lonely feeling lodged under his skin. The grief he could feel in his gums, under his fingernails. The love he would never get to feel in return. 

He wondered if Shane ever felt like this. The next drop of blood that dropped into the water was diluted slightly, pinkish in color and saltier than blood usually is. 

He was a ghost. And he had at least gotten one thing right: ghosts were so, incredibly cold.

—

“Hey,” Sara opens the door to the hospital room, giving Ryan a little wave as the door gently clicks behind her, “How are you feeling?” 

Ryan smiles, but he knows it looks strained and unhappy. Her face falls slightly, but she quickly picks it back up as she walks over to Ryan’s bed. 

She sits down at the end of the bed, and for a moment there’s a silence. It’s a horrible, awkward silence as they both hold back questions that are too sensitive to ask. Ryan looks down at the thin, plastic hospital blanket, watching his fingers pick absently at the material. 

“I don’t remember who it was,” he says quietly. Sara finally looks up at him. 

“You never told me,” her voice is low. As if it’s a secret. As if it’s a regret. “So I can’t remind you.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

She sighs.

“It’s okay. I probably wouldn’t have told you, if it had been me,” she smiles, and she turns her face away from him to look out the window, “Shane told me, but that’s just the type of guy he was, I guess. It’s different for everyone.”

Ryan lays his head down on the pillow, his gaze turning toward the same window.

“Yeah,” he mumbles, as a small red bird hits the window. It falls to the sill, where it gets up, flits its wings, and then flies away. 

“Hey,” he sits up again, the plastic sheets crunching as he does, “Who’s Shane?” 

A beat. 

Two beats.

Three beats, four. 

The quiet stretches as Ryan’s question settles and fills the room. Sara is frozen, a veritable statue in her silence.

“Please,” her voice is suddenly ragged, “please, please tell me this isn’t happening.” She turns to face Ryan, and she isn’t crying. Tears are welling in her eyes, but she’s not crying. She’s biting her lip, probably the inside of her cheek as well. 

Ryan’s heart is sinking down into the pit of his stomach. 

“I am trying so hard not to be angry right now,” she whispers, looking down at the bed. She gets up abruptly, shoving her fingers into her curly hair. 

“You’re— he— oh my God,” she’s facing the wall now, “He was so fucking stupid. I knew he should have just…” 

She sinks down to the floor, slowly dissolving into a pile. Ryan thinks he can hear her finally start to cry. 

Ryan watches her, her shoulders moving up and down as he tries to figure out something to say. The bed is loud as he swings his legs outward and lifts himself up. There’s a pain in his chest as he crosses the room and sits down beside Sara. 

Ryan’s never been good at this kind of stuff. It’s not often that he becomes emotional, and it’s almost never that he knows how to make himself or other people feel better. He follows his curiosity instead. 

“Who was he?” The question comes out louder than he intended, interrupting the soft crying in an abrupt way. It does make Sara pause for a moment, so Ryan counts it as a win. 

“He was… an idiot,” she laughs softly, a sound that’s both grieving and nostalgic, “and he loved you so much. He... loved you, Ryan. He died from this—“ she weakly waved at Ryan’s hospital gown, “because he thought… he couldn’t have known but he should’ve tried… he didn’t know you loved him. He died not knowing you loved him—“

Sara’s explanation is cut off by a brief sob, the sound made when the lump in someone’s throat bubbles up and is released. She composes herself, and turns to look Ryan in the eye.

“I kind of resent you, Ryan, and I’m sorry, but I can’t help it,” She lays her hand on his thigh, “It’s just, you get to live the rest of your life now. He’s dead, and it’s completely unfair because you guys should’ve been together and happy but now he’s dead because that stupid, selfish asshole couldn’t own up to his own feelings and he didn’t want to stop loving you or forget you.” 

She let out a breath. 

“I’m so mad at him,” she released a long, shuddering sigh, “but now he’ll never get to hear about it. That’s the trade-off for you getting to live, I guess— you lost one of the most important pieces. One of the funniest, one of the most weird, amazing parts of your life. I’m sorry.”

She wipes her tears away with the back of her hand and stands. She helps Ryan up, then pulls him into a tight hug. 

“I have to go,” she pulls back, then grabs her purse, “But google Buzzfeed Unsolved— surely you remember that, you can’t have forgotten Unsolved— and take a minute and watch all of the videos with him. Just watch and see how happy you made him and how happy he made you, and just…”

She opens the door and looks back at him.

“See what you lost.” 

—

The day after Shane died, as Shane’s family tried to sort out their grief and the funeral plans, Ryan sat at his computer and watched Buzzfeed Unsolved. 

The room was dark, and he was curled up underneath his blankets. The laptop’s screen reflected dim light onto his face as the videos played and played on. He sat there watching Shane move, breathe, laugh. 

He never used to watch these videos, before Shane died. Didn’t like to see himself and hear his voice play back. Now, it felt like all he had left. His own presence in front of the camera didn’t even register with him: it was all Shane. 

His chest hurt. He couldn’t tell if it was the violets coming back up or the gaping hole left in his heart by Shane’s death. 

He couldn’t cry anymore. He felt as if he had spent all the tears he’d been allotted for his life the night he found out Shane had died in the back of an ambulance. Watching these captured pieces of time, in which Shane was with him and always would be, stopped, forever, made him want to cry. But he couldn’t, and he wasn’t going to force himself to. 

He coughed, a terrible, hacking cough. His next breath was difficult, and his next one didn’t come at all. He threw the blankets off and stumbled blindly to the bathroom. 

The videos played on in the empty room, Shane’s voice and Ryan’s heaving the only sounds in the quiet apartment. 

—

His nose was big, framed by warm eyes, with thick eyebrows and short hair, all three the same shade of dark brown. The first thing Ryan notices about him is the charming way the skin around his eyes crinkled as he smiled. 

Ryan watches all of the videos he can find. He’s amazed he doesn’t remember a single thing about him. His own appearance in the videos isn’t surprising (he remembers Unsolved, of course he remembers Unsolved), but the other man isn’t involved in any of the memories he has. Their conversations are easy, funny, and Ryan knows that this is the man he was in love with. 

Ryan doesn’t know if people can fall in love with someone they’ve never met, but if they can, Ryan knows he still loves Shane. It’s not all-consuming, it’s not fiery or feverish, it’s not sharp or cutting— it aches. It hurts like a headache: all over, not unbearable, but uncomfortable, and with no specific starting point. 

The window outside his hospital room shows the night sky, and he looks toward it as the videos play. He closes his eyes and listens to the sound. 

_“I did meet some of the most insufferable people. But, they also met me.”_

Ryan laughs, surprising himself. 

In another universe, Shane didn’t die. In another universe, Shane told Ryan, or Ryan told Shane, and they were okay. 

In this one, though, Ryan holds onto a man he doesn't remember through small vignettes of their time together. In this universe, Ryan is in love with someone who would never know, couldn’t know. 

The video ends. Ryan turns his phone off and sits in the dark room. 

There’s a sound outside the window. Ryan sits up, and slowly lifts himself from the bed, carefully so as not to upset the stitches from his surgery. He shuffles over and looks out. 

Two birds sit in the bush directly outside. A cardinal and a blue jay, and, softly, they tweet back and forth to each other, copying each other’s songs. 

He laughs to himself, quietly. Ryan feels like it’s a sign, but he knows Shane, based on what he saw in the videos, would hate the idea that he came back from the dead.

 _Maybe he’d like it, though,_ Ryan thought, watching the two animals interact, _because he’s a bird and not a ghost._

As Ryan leans onto the window sill, he feels loved and seen. It hurts and doesn’t all at the same time. 

Ryan starts to cry again, cathartic and painful, and the birds fly away. Ryan watches them through his tears, until he can’t see them anymore. He shuffles back to the hospital bed, climbs back in, and falls asleep thinking about Shane. 

He doesn’t dream.

**Author's Note:**

> kudos and comments are always appreciated!


End file.
